Wednesday’s session in the S&P 500 index futures stayed within a fairly small range of about 30 handles and involved a few ping-pong moves back and forth.
The bears took control for the first half of overnight trading, but in the early morning hours the bulls steadily brought the index futures back up to unchanged. After starting the regular session nearly flat, bulls took the index futures nearly straight up to the all-time high. Unfortunately, sellers had other plans for the day. Bulls continued to push for the opening hour, and even notched the all-time high in the index futures slightly higher to 5798.75. Unfortunately, the bears took control from that point and initiated a steady, yet choppy selloff that lasted into the afternoon.
Support was found near S1, above last week’s close. After reaching this point, the action turned into more whipsaw-like moves while staying in the red for the rest of the day. Bulls were able to stave off some of the session’s losses with a last-15-minute rally which continued after the close (helped along by Micron Technology, Inc.’s (NASDAQ: MU) earnings).
The session concluded below the day’s midpoint at 5779, losing an unlucky 13 handles. Market participants now have to look forward to a slew of Fedspeak expected on Thursday that includes Fed Chair Powell, along with durable goods data for August and the second revision of Q2’s GDP Thursday morning.
For the second day in a row, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) was the biggest gainer among top components of the index. The chip designer was able to advance by $2.64 or 2.18% to close at $123.51 for the day.
That performance was over two percent better than the cash index’s decline of 0.22%.
The biggest loser ended up being Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN). For the day, the e-commerce giant declined by $1.43 or 0.74% to close at $192.53.
